page_title: Wawel Cathedral
section_title: Sigismund's Chapel
hierarchical_section_title: Wawel Cathedral / Interior / Sigismund's Chapel
caption_attribution_description: English: Entrance to the Wawel cathedral, from west. Polski: Wejście do katedry wawelskiej od zachodu Italiano: Cattedrale del Wawel - ingresso occidentale
context_page_description: The Royal Archcathedral Basilica of Saints Stanislaus and Wenceslaus on the Wawel Hill, also known as the Wawel Cathedral, is a Roman Catholic church and cathedral of the Archdiocese of Kraków, located on Wawel Hill in Kraków, Poland. More than 900 years old, it is the Polish national sanctuary and traditionally has served as coronation site of the Polish monarchs.
  Karol Wojtyla, who in 1978 became Pope John Paul II, the day after his ordination to the priesthood offered his first Mass as a priest in the crypt of the cathedral on 2 November 1946, and was ordained Kraków's auxiliary bishop in the Cathedral on 28 September 1958.
  The current, Gothic cathedral, is the third edifice on this site: the first was constructed and destroyed in the 11th century; the second one, constructed in the 12th century, was destroyed by a fire in 1305. The construction of the current one began in the 14th century on the orders of bishop Nanker.
context_section_description: Sigismund's Chapel, or Zygmunt Chapel ("Kaplica Zygmuntowska"), adjoining the southern wall of the cathedral, is one of the most notable pieces of architecture in Kraków and perhaps "the purest example of Renaissance architecture outside Italy." Financed by Sigismund I the Old, it was built between 1517 and 1533 by Bartolommeo Berrecci, a Florentine Renaissance architect, who spent most of his career in Poland.
  A square-based chapel with a golden dome, it houses the tombs of its founder and those of his children, King Sigismund II Augustus and Anna Jagiellon (Jagiellonka).
caption: Entrance to the Wawel cathedral, from the west
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